If the city fights your condo tower proposal, just make it bigger

When King Financial Holdings proposed a 39-storey, 201-unit condo tower along the restaurant-heavy strip near King and Peter this winter, the anti-development machine kicked in: city council vowed to fight the tower, heartening locals who were worried that restaurant row would become windy, shadowy and characterless. But city planners now support the project, even though it’s been upsized to 47 storeys and 304 units. Apparently, King Financial appeased city staff by limiting the number of parking spots and buying the adjoining building to ensure a minimum 20-metre buffer between the condo and the adjacent towers. But buffer or no buffer, won’t the development still have a significant impact on the streetscape? [National Post]